Shockingly, a recent Microsoft study claims that the human attention span decreased from 12 seconds in 2000 to approximately 8 seconds in 2013. So given the overabundance of online distractions, delivering your brand’s message to your Facebook followers can be a daunting task even for many professional marketers. Given a small window of opportunity to entice prospective leads, how do you outshine the competition that is cluttering people’s news feeds
To solve your dilemma, the social media experts at Premiere Creative offer insight to the various Facebook ads you can use to boost your sales leads.
Investing in Paid Ads
Imagine a group of rowdy kids at summer camp ignoring their counselors’ pleas to behave. Initially, the counselors ask the campers to settle down, to which a few obedient campers acquiesce their request. But most of the rambunctious youngsters ignore the increasingly stressed counselors. Luckily, these counselors have a few more tactics up their sleeves to calm down these energetic campers including raising their voices, revoking privileges, and even threatening to make a phone call home to their parents. Despite initially achieving poor results, the counselors successfully calm down the campers after deploying alternative methods.
Now picture this scenario and apply it to the social media landscape, particularly Facebook. Very rarely do brands achieve success by employing one tactic in their strategy. Instead, they must use a combination of methods that build off one another to achieve a goal. An immense Facebook following isn’t enough to broadcast your message to the masses; unfortunately, a few well-crafted posts on your business page won’t do the trick either. Not only do you need a solid social distribution strategy containing interesting content, you also need to identify ways to amplify that content. For digital neophytes, social amplification relies on having your content shared through paid advertising, or from word-of-mouth, which includes followers, customers, and even your own employees. Businesses must understand that tweaking their budget to include funds for social media marketing is now necessary to boost the reach and visibility of content on Facebook. While some brands may be wary to partake in this “pay to play” method, the truth is that paid advertising options grant brands the ability to precisely target their audience. As you begin to delve into paid Facebook advertising, you’re probably wondering the question on everyone’s mind, “What is the best way to advertise on Facebook?”
Boosting Facebook Posts
If you’re looking for a quick and easy option for paid Facebook advertising, look no further than boosting posts. With a simple click of a button, you can place an organic post in front of more viewers, thereby increasing brand exposure and gain new followers.
Unlike other paid Facebook advertising features, boosting content on your business page doesn’t require Facebook Power Editor or Ads Manager. Keep in mind, however, that you miss out on targeting capabilities that these programs offer. While this option is more simplistic in nature than other paid advertising methods, you should still be strategic when selecting a post to boost. Consider this – would you rather allocate money towards boosting a post with high organic reach, and ample engagement; or would you rather put money to a post with a few likes and no comments? If you want to maximize ROI, it’s best practice to boost your highest performing organic content.
Facebook Carousel Ads
Facebook Carousel ads offer up to five clickable cards for each ad, granting marketers the opportunity to play with imagery, copy links and CTAs. We’ve all heard the colloquial phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This phrase proves true because research conduct by Kinetic Social found that carousel ads achieve ten times more traffic than Facebook’s other ad formats. The multiple side-by-side design allows brands to convey their story to potential customers.
For instance, you can showcase the many uses or features of a product, before and after images, a timeline, and easy steps of assembling your product. Alternatively, you can add a CTA to every frame, offering users more opportunities to interact with your ad. The best part about carousel ads involves the self-optimizing option to automatically place the best-performing images first. If you’re curious about this format’s marketing potential, why not take a ride on this carousel?
Single Image Ads
While Facebook offers many different advertising formats, businesses can begin with the “classic” Facebook ad. Basically, your ad consists of one image, ad text, and a headline. While not as interactive as other formats, image ads are easy to create for beginner Facebook ads because they’re simple, straightforward, and achieve results
Single Video Ads
While certainly no YouTube, Facebook is slowly transforming into a ‘video-first’ platform. Whether you like it or not, videos on the social media giant are here to stay; but the way users consume video is also changing. According to Facebook, 47% of a video’s value is delivered in the first three seconds and 74% of the value is delivered in the first ten seconds. So, businesses will need to make an impression fast to hold onto a viewer’s attention by shifting their collective efforts on telling a story through compelling visuals. If you’re looking for a great way to entice your viewers, try creating a 6-second video ad.
Slideshow Ads
Don’t worry – there’s no need to drag out a dusty projector to play these modern slideshows because this option allows you to upload or use stock photos to broadcast your brand’s story. Even better, slideshows are a great way to produce a video without equipment or editing experience. Your slideshow can contain three to ten images, sound, and text. Furthermore, slideshows require less data than videos to play, making them an ideal choice if you’re targeting users in areas with slower wireless connections.
Strategizing a Facebook Advertising Plan
To effectively target your content to relevant audiences, make sure your advertising budget aligns with your objectives. You can easily achieve this initiative by utilizing the various tools Facebook offers. You work hard to create engaging content, so wouldn’t you want to take advantage of every available option to ensure users see your content on their cluttered news feed?
To illustrate this point, think back to the camp counselor example. Just as the counselors used every trick up their sleeve to calm down the campers, you must employ your bag full of tricks for a successful content amplification strategy. Your brand will soon notice audience growth, new leads and greater brand visibility from your efforts.
Are you interested in exploring paid Facebook advertising? To learn more about the various Facebook ad formats, contact Premiere Creative today or give us a call at (973) 346-8100!